by Ellen Harey, Harness Racing Communications

Harrisburg, PA — Multi-millionaire Put On A Show (1:47.3) was the sales topper at Thursday’s (Nov. 5) Standardbred Mixed Sale, featuring a smattering of yearlings and weanlings, but otherwise all bloodstock.

USTA/Ellen Harvey photo

Put On A Show was sold for $450,000 on Thursday.

The bidding opened at $300,000 and ended at $450,000 for the daughter of Rocknroll Hanover–Stienam’s Place whose first foal (Beach Showoff by Somebeachsomewhere) sold at the Lexington Selected Sale this fall for $250,000.

Richard Young, co-owner with Joanne Young and Craig Henderson, signed the sales slip for the Northwood Bloodstock consignee.

“I always wanted to have her,” said Young. “North of five ($500,000) and I would have to let her go over five.

“She’ll go back home to Hanover, where she’s been all along. They love her and didn’t want to lose her. They said, ‘You’ve got to bring her back.’ I said I’m going to bring her back unless she brings a number that I have to take. I owned the majority of her when I sold her. It truly was to dissolve a partnership. She came in last night and she leaves now, right back where she was.”

The $165,000 trotting broodmare Mistresswithmuscle, hip No. 1187, went back home again — briefly — when she sold from the Concord Stud Farm consignment on Thursday afternoon. She was consigned by Concord for owner Steve Farrell and sold to Reijo Liljendahl. The 4-year-old mare is in foal to Donato Hanover.

“She was born and raised at Concord Stud in New Jersey as a baby,” said Chris Coyle, assisting with the Concord consignment on a break from his Olive Branch Farm in North Carolina. “They still own her mother. She was a $70,000 sale yearling; she was purchased by Mr. Steve Farrell from Florida, formerly from New England. Steve also owned the champion pacer Rockincam a few years back. He’s retiring and decided to sell all his horses, he’s going to do some traveling with his wife and close up his barn.

“It doesn’t happen often with the breeding farms, to have one that you raised as a baby come back and resell a second time. We’re very proud of her. She raced against a lot of the best fillies of her year and he trained her himself.”

Long trip for yearling

The yearlings sold at Harrisburg will disperse all over the continent, but hip No. 343 will make perhaps the longest ship of all — to Scotland. Scotsmen Hugh O’Neil and Steven Gilvear have been shopping all week for both yearlings and broodmares.

“I bought a yearling on Tuesday, hip 343, a Somebeachsomewhere colt,” said Gilvear.

The son of My Fantasy sold from the Preferred Equine Marketing consignment for $30,000.

“I’m taking him back to Scotland. I’m going to race him, hopefully, I can race him at Stirling, York, Wales, go roundabout,” he said. “I will break him and train him myself. I have a farm and we train there.

“We don’t have any 2-year-old races, all ages. Purses will be anything from $10,000 to $30,000. Shipping (to Scotland) will be $5,000 sterling, seven and a half thousand US. We buy broodmares as well. I’m looking at some just now.”

Broodmares strong in sale

The fourth day of the sale was a departure from last year’s schedule, with a small number of yearlings selling in the morning. Last year, Thursday was fully devoted to yearling sales, with no bloodstock offerings. The day’s total for 295 horses was a gross of $7,294,400 for an average of $24,727.

The strongest sector of the market was broodmares, for an average of $33,297. The average was almost even between pacing and trotting mares, $33,393 for pacing mares and $33,189 for the trotters.

The 41 yearlings who sold brought an average of $10,561. The average was helped by the top seller of the day among youngsters — hip No. 1060, Worldly Pageant (Donato Hanover–Asian Pageant) who sold to Thomas Dillon of Anson, Maine, for $70,000.

“It looked like there was a high degree of enthusiasm for mares,” said Standardbred Sales Company Chairman Russell Williams. “That must give you some certainty about the future. The market is long on Standardbreds at the moment and that’s a good sign. The best possible thing you could see would be for broodmares to be strong; they’re buying horses who won’t race for three years.”

Always B Miki update

In racing news, Breeders Crown champ Always B Miki may be in for a long vacation soon, says co-owner Mitchel Skolnick, who was shopping at Harrisburg on Thursday.

“He’s got post three in the American-National on Saturday,” says Skolnick, “and I think that’s going to be it for the season, he’s not eligible for anything else.

“Mr. Takter (trainer Jimmy) will hold on to him over the winter. I imagine Mr. Takter won’t let him out of his sight,” he said with a laugh. “I think that he’s in good hands with Jimmy.

“We’ve had lots and lots of people congratulating us on Miki, saying he’s their favorite horse. It’s pretty remarkable, maybe a dozen people, but for our business that’s a huge number.”

Skolnick said Always B Miki’s gentlemanly demeanor was an asset in his recuperation from a broken bone last fall.

“We had him in a stall for three months, and as Bob Boni says, ‘Great horses seem to know you’re taking care of them.’

“He was so easy. I worried every minute about him pulling the stall down, he just didn’t do it. He had plenty of opportunities to give me worries, but he didn’t take any of them.”